Vocal Voices

The letter from TalkTalk

Arrived this morning informing me that during the last hack "personal information or sensitive financial data was taken.".

This was always a possibility and I had already tightened things up, but just a warning: if any of you receive an e-mail purporting to be from me and it is not written in my style or is anything other than general chit-chat, just bin it. If there are any links do not click on them, and don't worry it was only my data that was accessed.

I now have to go to my bank and do a face-to-face update on my account, well there is not much point in doing it online, is there? I need to make sure that only DDs and SOs approved by me are acted upon and check all withdrawals from the date of the hack. What a palaver.

However, for my troubles, TalkTalk are offering a free upgrade to one of four of their services. I already have two as part of my package and the other two (free SIM or TV channels) I am not interested in. Another thing bugs me, there is no indication when the "free" upgrade ends or what the cost will be once it does. It all smacks of selling services down the line arising from the hack due to customer inertia - once they have something, many will continue with it.

Ah well, a change might be as good as a rest.

Sorry to hear this Frank, a real nuisance for you! Thanks for the headsup!

Thanks Kaz.

It is no big deal really, and it is not such a bad idea to update your security data with your bank - change passwords, PINs, security questions and answers - from time to time. I have just been lazy, as most of us are.

Well, it needs doing today, so I am off. See you later.

As I could not check my monthly account when the site was down due to the hacking problem, I sent an email to Dido Harding at TalkTalk.
Got a personal letter from her dated 12th November to say my name. phone number and email address have been accessed.
My bank have told me that there is a flag on my account and any unusual payments will be stopped.
I am going to change next year when I have laid plastic pipes through my garden so that the new cable will go where I want it.
Have seen the the suggested upgrades and I do not want any of them.

They should offer you cash compensation, not try and sell you their own products.

My letter from Dido said my personal info had not been accessed, but then I do not have online banking maybe that is the difference. Changing would be the thing if it can be done easily, getting out of AOL was awful, they got most threatening after I stopped paying when I left. Now they belong to Talk Talk anyway.

Got my letter from TT last week but it just said the same as the email, that nothing was used, same as Ped's

I check my bank regularly so would notice any odd activity, but my bank are also pretty good at flagging that up anyway. I dont use my email address from TT at all.

miasmum wrote:They should offer you cash compensation, not try and sell you their own products.

I couldn't agree more. That upgrade offer was crass, and merely a sign of a weak company, desperate not to lose customers, running for cover.

Sorted! New security in place with a new limit per transaction or ATM withdrawals set for a while.

Cash compensation? I am not bothered about that, but the "free" offer is crass and a bit of an insult too far. A guarantee that this will never happen again would have been enough.

It does sound like TT are taking the Pith with their "offers".

Just be aware that email consequences of these break in's can come round years later. The impact of my data on LinkedIn being hijacked took about 2 years to surface. It may have looked like me and been going to the linkedIn copy of my contacts, but it was a .se address I have never used.

Being careful and looking at the detail behind the name on emails is always a good move. Something which becomes harder all the time on mobile devices.